


Tommy and the Stranger

by princehamlet



Category: DC Comics, Hitman, phantom stranger - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7812082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princehamlet/pseuds/princehamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an AU where, after Tommy dies, the Phantom Stranger comes to show him his life through a different lens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tommy and the Stranger

When he had died, it had felt surprisingly rather underwhelming. Minutes previous of dying, a sniper on a rooftop, when aiming for his head, had accidentally shot his fingers off – the shock protected him from the pain, so he felt nothing. Then as he ran, and his enemies kept shooting, and the bullets just kept piercing his torso and chest and shoulders and other places, it all just felt like… bee stings, Tommy figured. Maybe his brain wanted to believe they were only bee stings. Maybe, despite everything he had been through, even in the moment of being out in an open field with dozens of people who want his head on a platter because their boss snapped his fingers and said so, Tommy Monaghan figured that his luck just wouldn’t run out. 

But it did, indeed, yet that horror of death never truly set into Tommy’s mind. He just lied there next to Natt, who was in the same state as Tommy was. He just wheezed shallowly and looked at the blood on his hands and body and thought about everything and nothing, loose and brief thoughts hopping in and out of his dully panicked mind. He tried to dream about Pat, who had died four years ago, and the dream they had to move to Manhattan together and get a bottle of wine and watch the sun rise. God, it all seemed so far away now, so impossible. 

Indeed, Tommy was so arrogant that in his moment of dying he pondered, _how am I supposed to move on from this?_ For he didn’t know how to do anything but survive. 

That being said, Tommy died. He closed his eyes, took in one shallow, shaky breath, and wasn’t there anymore. In life, sometimes he’d remember the time he used his mind-reading superpower against a man who Natt would murder three seconds later. Tommy would recall how the man’s brain shut off like a light switch, and was shaken by the revelation that when it came to human beings, there was a time when they were, and there was a time where they were not. 

Tommy was, and then he was not.

And then, he was.

Tommy awoke with a bone-rattling gasp. The only sense he could pay attention to in those early moments was the crushing pain he was experiencing. His brain could process nothing else – it was as if there was a siren going off in his brain with loud, red flashing lights and signs that read “TIME FOR PAIN!”. Because there was no shock or death to protect Tommy from feeling the mess he had made of his body this time. Tommy writhed and choked, pressing his hands against the wounds to uselessly stop the bleeding – only to find that his wounds were healing. 

“Whuh…?” Tommy whimpered, craning his neck to watch as the skin mended and the blood dried and all the holes in his shirt – so many holes – patched themselves up with nonexistent thread. Finally, his breathing calmed just a bit, although his chest still heaved, what with his lungs sucking in all the air it had missed in life. 

Tommy laid back, and let out just the slightest chorus of chuckles. His luck hadn’t run out. He was truly unbeatable. 

“Ahem,” a voice said. 

He opened those void-black eyes of his once more, and looked up. Against the sun stood a silhouetted stranger, whose void-white eyes contrasted and glowed against the shadows that fell down his face. The man, as was apparent, had been looming over Tommy this whole time, watching him struggle and whimper and bleed. For a moment, Tommy was angry about this fact when it processed, but then he realized something once his eyes adjusted: this man was clad in strange cloaks and coins and garb, and he had eyes that were all too similar (yet starkly different) to his own. Indeed, Tommy realized that this was the man who had brought him back to life. Not with any humanly medical procedures, either: with magic. An outfit was always a very important judge of character, Tommy silently decided.

“I’m up, I’m up.” Tommy said in response to the other’s call for attention, and he stirred himself – but that action was a mistake, for his stomach leapt and he immediately slapped his hand over his mouth to keep his insides from being his outsides. 

“Don’t move too quickly,” The stranger’s voice was a deep thing, and its resonance seemed to shake Tommy’s very soul with its strength. “You passed away six minutes ago. There is no rush to come back into the swing of things.” 

“Fair,” He groaned, lying back and closing his eyes. “Can we… talk like this?” 

“That would be fine,” complied the man. “Thomas Monaghan Jr., my name is the Phantom Stranger.” He droned the seemingly practiced line in the same manner an airplane stewardess explains how to put on your oxygen mask. 

“Sure – an’ it’s Tommy.”

Stranger seemed slightly annoyed with that statement, but he could seldom blame our cranky hero. “Tommy,” he corrected himself, “You are a dead man.”

“Well, not anymore. Jus’ look amme.” He tried to move himself again, but felt a worse surge of nausea, and with a mumbled ‘Holy God’ did he lie down once more. 

“It only seems as though you are alive at this very moment, but I am conversing with your soul. I have taken the liberty to heal your physical body so as to clean up your ghostly vessel in turn and… ah… also as a favor to the poor morticians who would have had to perform surgery on your bullet-riddled body.” Upon seeing the stricken look on Tommy’s face, Stranger cleared his throat and continued, “For you see, Tommy, I was the one sent to guide your soul to the gates. On this journey, we will see snapshots of your life on this Earth from start to finish before I will depart from you.”

Tommy swallowed hard, his face written with horror as he whispered, “Like The Christmas Carol?”

“Like The Christmas Carol,” consoled the phantom. 

“Is this happenin’ to Natt, too?” Tommy asked, gathering up his strength to sit up. He turned his head to his large friend beside him, whose closed eyes and parted lips – the very image of a serene death – betrayed the gore that had taken place, same as Tommy. 

“It is.”

“How come I can’t see a trench-coated ghost guy hasslin’ him?” He asked, finally brave enough to rouse himself. 

“Us guiders of souls do not, by any means, appear the same, Tommy—and we are currently invisible, so as to provide a personal experience.”

Tommy scoffed. “So are you guys, like, grim reapers, or…?”

Stranger pondered the idea of making a FAQ on the gates of heaven, ignoring the other’s question. He offered Tommy a white-gloved hand, which he took as he raised himself up. The ghostly guide turned away and walked. What had before been the expansive field where Tommy had died began to blur at the seams, to fade back into a world that was sparkling, changing. The blue lights that emitted from the holes that had ripped in the backdrop reflected beautifully against Tommy’s black eyes, and he followed, lips parted but soundless for a long moment. 

“… What is this place?” Tommy inquired when he finally spoke. The field was lost behind them, and there was only darkness and stars ahead. 

“We are going back to the beginning of your life, starting at the very beginning of the tale. As of this moment, we are walking in between time-streams, breaking the walls that bind reality so as to accomplish our goal. We should be arriving any moment.” The stranger said, keeping his head poised forward, voice cool as ever.

“Hold on,” Tommy stopped dead in his tracks, the stars seeming to surround and overwhelm him. “You were serious about the whole Christmas Carol thing? I thought--”

Stranger turned to look at him, white eyes slightly wide in gentle bewilderment. “Of course I was serious.” It seemed clear that not many of his ghostly companions objected in such a manner – but then again, all of them were nothing like the outspoken Tommy Monaghan.

“I didn’t think you were serious,” Tommy said under his breath, and then ran both hands down his face. “Man, I can’t do this. I really can’t.”

“Why is that, Thomas?”

“It’s Tommy, and it’s because my life’s been… uh…” Was he allowed to cuss in front of someone who had presumably been sent from heaven? Tommy itched idly at his scruffy chin for a moment before relenting in frustration, “—my life’s sucked, buddy.” 

“But it has been a life nonetheless,” Stranger said. For a moment, his whole, old face seemed to soften into something concerned, something fatherly. The man approached Tommy and rested his hand on his shoulder, a gesture that made Tommy’s gut twist into knots of uncertainty. “It may be hard to bear, to relive some of the worst events of your life; believe me, son, I can understand the horror you must be experiencing.” He said, tones low and voice gentle. “But this has been the only time you’ll have on Earth, and it must be celebrated: including the bad parts. Tommy Monaghan, will you allow me to celebrate your life with you?”

He hated the lump that had formed in his throat and the emotion that swelled in his chest. “… Do I get ta’ say no?”

“No,” Stranger’s smile was genuine and beautiful. He turned back and went. “Let us go on.”

And go on they did. The stars began to fade as the distance wore on until the sky that expanded above them was a gorgeous midnight blue. Tommy still felt uncertain, sad: how else were you supposed to feel when you were about to relive all the memories that you spent your 28 years trying to bury away, a life of shame and terrors from birth to death? In attempt to bury the hatchet once more, Tommy came to catch up with the Stranger’s pace, and tried another query: “You said you understand the terrors m’ goin’ through. Doessat mean you were alive, n’ died, and did all this too?”

“I did indeed,” Stranger said vaguely, not seeming keen on continuing the tale. 

“Well… um… what’s yer name?” Tommy said, and mustered a smile, “’Cuz Phantom Stranger just sounds like a freaky stripper name.” 

He didn’t seem amused with the other’s sense of humor. “You need not concern yourself with this information, Tommy.”

“Whaaat?” Tommy said defensively, like a child against an adult. “You get to see my whole life like a frickin’ film an’ I can’t even get your name?” 

Stranger’s expression softened once more, as he obviously could agree that that was a fair point. But he only let out a slightly bleak sigh and said, “Please understand when I tell you that revealing my identity would only spur further questions. The time we have together is not to have a mutual vent session, it is to recognize the events of your life.”

 _This guy must be fun at parties,_ mused Tommy internally as he cast a suspicious look Stranger’s way. “This isn’t gonna be some kinda bullshit thing where at the end you reveal yer the ghost’a my dad an’ you’re sorry for all the stuff you did, right? ‘Cuz I just died and m’ not sure if I could handle bein’ that pissed off.”

That got a chuckle out of Stranger. “No, not at all. I am, and always will be, a stranger to those I encounter day-to-day.” He sent a sleek glance toward Tommy and advised, “and watch your language in my presence, Tommy.”

He had been right about the no-cussing thought.

“We have arrived,” Stranger said, halting suddenly.

And they had. Tommy looked out and only felt his anxieties increase: Stranger had been truthful about starting from the very beginning. They were in the place where his mother and father had lived, a little town in Ireland. It looked just like he remembered when he and his sister Frances had visited: dingy, uneventful, even a little sad. 

“You sure I can’t back out?” Tommy asked helplessly.

“No,” Stranger refused again. “I am going to begin to tell your story.”

“I’m serious. I ain’t jokin’ around,” Tommy continued, even more uselessly: “Can’t I just die in peace? Can’t the God’a this universe just leave me alone for once?”

“The God of this Universe is showing you your life through his eyes,” Stranger replied so sharply and quickly that it nearly stung Tommy. “He is going to show you what it was like to watch you fail, and make mistakes, and you are going to see how truly frustrating it is to be unable to stop you from going down the wrong path.” The mysterious man had worked himself into a ramble. “He cares about you, Tommy. This is a very, very important step of your journey, this part that puts everything you’ve lived through into perspective. Do you understand?”

Stubbornly, Tommy nodded. Then he whispered, “Stranger, you God?” 

“No.” He said coldly. “I am just another human who is very, very unworthy of his grace.”

“We got more’n common than I thought.” Tommy sighed heavily before giving a dismissive gesture. “Let’s get on with it.”


End file.
